Dale Earnhardt remembered: 10 years on

Ten years after NASCAR's most enduring legend died in a crash on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, Diego Mejia collects the thoughts of friends, rivals and famous fans of The Intimidator - Dale Earnhardt

Just as Formula 1 passed into darkness for a time after May 1, 1994, when Ayrton Senna was killed in front of millions of television viewers, so NASCAR suffered an immeasurable loss when its greatest character Dale Earnhardt was killed in what seemed at the time to be an innocuous crash during the climax of the 2001 Daytona 500. Instead the accident and the race left a deep mark in the sport's history.

It's now ten years to the day since that sunny February afternoon, when the man known as 'The Intimidator' died on the final lap of an event that took him almost 20 years to win. Ironically, the team he founded, Dale Earnhardt Incorporated, went on to take a 1-2 finish with Michael Waltrip followed by his son Dale Earnhardt Jr in that race.